GRADING RUBRIC MUST BE FOLLOWED

USE ATTACHED TEMPLATE FOR COMPLETION

Instructions

Develop a portfolio of assessment types that you could use in your educational setting. To prepare, refer to the Preparing for Your Assessment resources. Using the information you found in your research of assessments and theories, and using the attached template complete your portfolio.

Begin by choosing three assessments. Select one assessment you currently use or that came out of your professional collaboration, a second assessment you discovered in your research, and a third that is mandated in your educational setting.

Then, create a document that includes the following:

• Analyze the theories that support the assessments you chose.
  • Reference the content from the articles that supports your choice of assessments.
• Compare the assessments with the best practices you uncovered in your research.
  • Reference the content from the articles that supports your choice of assessments.
• Evaluate the purpose of each assessment in light of your research on the theories and best practices in assessing.
• Analyze factors in your educational setting that contribute to your assessment choices. Respond to the following prompts in your analysis:
  • Have you used the assessment you researched?
  • What factors influenced your choice of assessments/theories?
  • What effect did collaboration have on the choice of your assessments/theories?
  • How will you use the assessments? How might technology be a part of the assessments?

In this assessment, you will develop a portfolio of assessment types that you could use in your educational setting. In addition to the practical use for the assessments, you will consider the theoretical base of the assessments and how their use aligns with best practices outlined in the research.

Additionally, assessment development is often collaborative. As part of this assessment, you will analyze the impact collaboration with your colleagues had on the assessment selections you made.

Any educational approach is grounded in theory and in the development of best practices that emerge from that theory. This assessment is all about the dynamic between theory and practice. This is not a linear relationship but rather a cyclical one, where theory engenders best practices, the implementation of which subsequently informs and refines theory. In preparation for this assessment, you will search the professional literature for scholarly sources on both theory and best practices as they relate to student assessment.

Designing common assessments can help teachers diagnose learner needs and learning acquisition in a more consistent and accurate manner. Working collaboratively to design assessments provides teachers with a greater degree of expertise and helps them to design more valid and reliable measures for assessing students.

Common assessments and protocols also provide teachers with opportunities to differentiate assessments to a greater extent. This is because they can design a variety of assessment types to allow students to demonstrate learning. They can also choose to assign different teachers within the group or professional learning community specific assignment grading tasks so they can spread the work of assessment and give those with more expertise and experience in a given area the opportunity to provide students with a greater depth of feedback on their work and performance.

Furthermore, common assessments provide teachers with more time and resources to test the degree to which the assessments they plan to administer are valid and reliable. For example, when creating a test, a group of teachers can pilot the test on a small, random sample of students and gain a better perspective of the degree to which criteria on the test measure what they intend to measure and to what extent results are consistent. In addition, teachers can discuss findings from the test to identify flaws and areas of inconsistency and then revise those areas to ensure the test is accurately measuring proficiency in meeting learning objectives. They can then use the results of the assessment to drive further instruction.

In addition, common assessments generate more consistent expectations with regard to standards, what and how content is to be taught, and what it means to achieve standard proficiency. This can be extremely beneficial to teachers when preparing students for state standardized tests.

Resources: Assessment Models and Theories

• PRINT
• The resources here may help as you complete your assessment in this course. All are focused either on models or theories of assessment.
  • Dennis, L. R., Rueter, J. A., & Simpson, C. G. (2013). Authentic assessment: Establishing a clear foundation for instructional practices. Preventing School Failure, 57(4), 189–195.
  • Vlachou, M. A. (2015). Does assessment for learning work to promote student learning? The England paradigm. The Clearing House, 88(3), 101–107.
  • Carless, D. (2015). Exploring learning-oriented assessment processes. Higher Education, 69(6), 963–976.
  • Furtak, E. M., Morrison, D., & Kroog, H. (2014). Investigating the link between learning progressions and classroom assessment. Science Education, 98(4), 640–673.
  • Owen, S. (2014). Teacher professional learning communities: Going beyond contrived collegiality toward challenging debate and collegial learning and professional growth. Australian Journal of Adult Learning, 54(2), 54–77.
  • Jacoby, J. C., Heugh, S., Bax, C., & Branford-White, C. (2014). Enhancing learning through formative assessment. Innovations in Education and Teaching International, 51(1), 72–83.